Close Up (Mar-Dec 1932)

Page scan 00040 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1932
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00040
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
June 20, 2024
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34 CLOSE UP Among" the modern regisseurs tending to a merging of theatre with film, should be mentioned in the front line Erwin Piscator. He considers four kinds of film adaptable in the theatre : the film instnictin g the spectator by interpreting in a visual epitome the events forming the background of the spectacle, for instance : the history of the period preceding the revolution in the show Rasputin in which the film was comment on the action and represented somewhat a modernised form of Greek chorus. The dramatic film connected directly with the action of the play, creating with it an inseparable and unified characteristic of the majority of Piscator's productions, and best evinced in Paquet's Stiirmflut. Here Piscator has combined so tightlv the action of the stage with that of the film, obtaining the illusion of perspective prolongation of the scene, that the boundary of film and theatre is almost obliterated. The jilm-commcnt reinforces the action, it is an " optical word," and the " trickfilm " introduces the element of satire and parody in certain scenes and situations, with the object of stressing them very plainly ; for instance the trick film of Grosz to Hassek's Sveik. Another tvpe of this kind of film was The Polish Theatre in Warsaw. " The Toiver of Babel," by Antoni Slotiimski. Director : Leon Schiller. Photo : St. Brzozowski. Le Theatre polonais a Varsovie. " La Tour de Babel," d' Anton Slonimski. Directeur : Leon Schiller. Photo : St. Brzozowski. Das polnische Theater in Warschau. " Der Turm zii Babel," von Antoni Slonimski. Regie : Leon Schiller. Photo : St. Brzozowski.